Remarks to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Sept 22, 1997

Thank you very much. Thank you for the wonderful welcome you have given to the Vice President and me. Thank you, Xavier. Thank you, Carmen, Carolina. To the Members of Congress who are here, members of the Hispanic Caucus Institute, members of our administration - all those who were introduced by the Vice President. I'd also like to acknowledge the presence here of the general chairman of our political party, the Democratic Party, Governor Roy Romer of Colorado. Welcome, Governor Romer.

Xavier pointed out that I have been here all 5 years I have been President. I come because I have a good time. [Laughter] I like it. I know that here I will see the future of America, the vitality, the energy, the commitment, the passion necessary to make this country what it ought to be. But I have been here five times. [Laughter] I mean, those of us who are linguistically challenged - [laughter ] - always learn a few phrases - you know, su voto es sus votos; mi casa es su casa. [Laughter] Now I can say, su caucus es mi caucus.

I come here because when I leave here, I feel more alive, I feel more committed, I feel new energy, and I like what I see. I thank the Members of Congress for their service. I thank the Hispanics who have served in our administration more than in any other in the past; the members of the Cabinet who are here - Secretary Pena, Ambassador Richardson, Aida Alvarez. To all those in the White House - Maria Echaveste, Mickey Ibarra, Janet Murguia, and others. To my speechwriter, Carolyn Curiel, who I will soon nominate to be Ambassador to Belize. Gloria Tristani, whom I have just selected to serve as the newest member of the Federal Communications Commission.

There is also another person here I want to acknowledge who will have a lot to do with seeing that the face of the Federal Government and the policies of the Federal Government reflect the face and the heart of America. And here with me tonight is my nominee for Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Bill Lee. And I'd like to ask him to be recognized.

He grew up a Chinese-American in New York, has spent a lot of his life working for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He has worked to defend and protect the civil fights of the most vulnerable among us. And I thank you for your continued support for his nomination.

I'd also like to mention two people who aren't here tonight. We all miss Frank Tejeda whose career ended far too soon, as did his remarkable life. But I want to say again how much I enjoyed working with him and how much I miss him. And I'd also like to say a very special word of appreciation and good wishes to the first Hispanic-American elected to the United States Congress, Henry B. Gonzalez. He has been an irrepressible force for progress. He is an irreplaceable legislator. It has been my great honor to know him for 25 years, long before I ever dreamed I'd be here, and I'm quite sure long before he ever dreamed I would be here. [Laughter] But we wish him well, and we'll miss him.

Together, we have begun to prepare our beloved country for the 21st century. Tonight, I want to take just a few moments of your time to talk about the work ahead and the responsibility we have to support each other in that work.

It's been nearly 6 years now since I announced my candidacy for President. Many of you started with me, almost all of you finished with me, and we have begun a journey - to restore the American dream to everyone willing to work for it, to make America the world's greatest force for peace and freedom well into the next century and to go forward into that new century in spite of all of our diversity as one America.

We began with a bold, new economic course which reduced our deficit 80 percent before the recent budget passed. For all of you who voted for that, I hope that you're out there clapping to yourselves, because you deserve it. We expanded our exports with over 200 trade agreements. We invested in our people and their future. We took on the tough social problems at home and the tough foreign policy problems around the world.

Today the American people are reaping the results of these last years of effort: unemployment below 5 percent, Hispanic unemployment dropping from over 11 percent to about 7 percent, a drop of over 35 percent; record rates of small business growth with Hispanic-American businesses growing at three times the rate of overall business growth; and hundreds of thousands of new Latino homes in this country.

Violent crime has dropped 5 years in a row. We've had the largest drop in welfare rolls in history. All this signals progress. We should be optimistic, we should be hopeful, we should be confident. But we all know we have more to do before every one of our people, every one of your people and every one of the American people will be prepared to do well in the 21st century.

The first thing we have to do is to continue to expand and improve educational opportunity. I am proud that the budget I just signed represents the largest single increased investment in education since 1965. I fought hard to ensure that it included a 36 percent increase in funding for bilingual and immigrant education, to see that it expands Head Start, it funds our America Reads program to mobilize up to one million volunteer tutors to make sure our children can read well at an early age. It will help us to develop voluntary tests in reading and math to help children learn the basic skills they need to succeed, not to put them down but to lift them up.